Spy School Croatian Invasion
by DeathDragon921
Summary: Leo Shang and his guards disappear, leaving behind a note. The only lead the CIA has. Once again, Ben has to go into the lions den, facing old rivals, global plans, and deadly alliances. Can Ben figure out the plans once again before it's too late? Contains spoilers for SSBI.
1. Alert

Advanced Weaponry Classroom  
CIA Academy Of Espionage  
Washington DC  
May 14  
1130 hours

The text came during the middle of Advanced Weaponry class, a class I was awful in. On my last exam, I got an N (Never ever let this person use a gun) from Professor Crichton.  
The surprising thing was that Erica Hale sent it.  
GRANDDAD SAYS TO MEET AT THE DORM BUILDING ASAP. DON'T TAKE YOUR TIME.  
Erica Hale, though only in her 4th year, was the best spy in training. She was a legacy, going all the way to Nathan Hale himself. Since she was born, her grandfather had taught her everything she knows.  
Avoiding Professor Crichton's lecture about heavy artillery, I ran out of the class and rushed towards the dorm building.  
I was surprised Erica had even texted me. A few weeks ago, while we were lying low while trying to prove our innocence in destroying British Museum artifacts (we succeeded), she had admitted she learned that other people had value. However, she went back to being the Ice Queen as soon as we returned. Despite this, I still had a crush on her.  
I hurried as fast as I could towards the common room. And found it empty.  
"Hey," Erica sais behind me. Erica always snuck up on people. And was skilled at it.  
"What's the meeting about?" I asked  
"Granddad wants to meet with all members of Operation Screaming Vengeance," she said. She then walked off.  
I followed her to a dorm room belonging to someone I didn't know. Chip Schacter, Jawa O'Shea, Zoe Zibbell, and Mike Brezinski were already there.  
Erica's father, Alexander Hale, her grandfather, Cyrus Hale, and mother, Catherine Hale, were already there.  
"We have a problem," Cyrus said as I arrived. He was not a people person, like Erica, though he was a skilled spy. Alexander was the opposite.  
"What is it?" Mike asked.  
"Leo Shang has disappeared, along with all his guards," Cyrus replied.  
At the end of December, Leo Shang had planned to nuke the Climax Mine to corner the molybdenum market. However, I thwarted that by getting close to his daughter, Jessica Shang, and gotten him and all his henchmen arrested.  
"How?" Erica asked. "Did someone spring him?"  
"We are uncertain," Catherine replied. She was a good spy and not a jerk. "However, a Post-It note was left at the jail he and his guards were incarcerated."  
Cyrus took out the note from 1 of his jacket pockets. It read "FGDAAFFFGAFAAGDGDDFXFFFGDADFAAGFGAFFAAXFAXDGDAFGDGDDAGGGGGXFFFFGXFGFGGGFGDGFFGFXFXGAAGXDGFGXAGDXGGAFADAAFGDGFXAXGDADFGXFGGXGFFDADAFFXXDGGAAX NUCLEAR +39.7761117, -105.012696"  
"I don't know what the first 2 parts mean," I said, "but I know the numbers. They're coordinates for somewhere in Denver.  
"Why is Denver so important?" Mike asked.  
"It could be a link to Agent R, who, from what I understand, lives in Denver," Jawa said.  
"Who now?" Alexander asked.  
"Him?" Catherine asked at the same time.  
"You know him?" Jawa asked Catherine.  
"Yes," she replied. "I ran into him on a mission. He helped MI6 out a lot and is a really good spy. However, that's all that MI6, the CIA, and any other spy organization know."  
"I heard about a connection to him and Orion," Erica pointed out.  
"You found him!?" Orion asked, surprised.  
Orion helped us decrypt Joshua Hallal's flash drive, giving us the location of Ms. E, head of SPYDER. Afterwards, we had to lie low for a few days at his chateau nearby.  
"You think he can help?" Cyrus asked disdainfully. "He's just as suspicious as Leo Shang himself."  
"When I was with him, he helped a bunch," Catherine said. "We probably wouldn't have succeeded if not for him. Plus, if the coordinates do point us to him, it's a lead."  
"But if it is," I said, "Shang's goons might come after him. And our lives could be in danger once again."  
"First, danger is part of life at the CIA," Erica informed me. "Second, if they do, it could give us the location of Shang's headquarters. We could use them to our advantage."  
"I say we go," Mike said.  
It looked like another dangerous mission was staring.


	2. Cryptography

4341 Umatilla St  
Denver  
Colorado  
May 14  
1820 hours

I've flown to Denver once before as part of the mission to stop Leo Shang. However, he was heading to Vail, in the Rockies. Agent R was right in Denver.  
It was around 5 pm by the time we got out of the airport. And it took us a while to get to the coordinates. Denver was close by (only 40 minutes away), but Cyrus refused to use the GPS. Or take I-70. He was however, able to determine the coordinates of where he was, and utilize that.  
By 6:20, we arrived. The place looked like a normal house, like every headquarters SPYDER always had.  
"Oh great," Erica said.  
What?" Zoe asked.  
"Agent R seems to have a really high-tech security system," Erica replied. "It seems impossible to break. Plus, it seems impossible to access, as a bunch of messages are leaving or entering the house."  
"Most of them are false," Orion explained. "This is to throw people off. If I get to the correct one, I can allow us access." He then began intercepting the messages on his computer.  
After a few minutes, the message "ACCESS GRANTED" appeared.  
Agent R probably knows his system's been breached," Catherine said, "so he'll probably have his guard up. Get all weapons ready."  
Now that access was granted, Erica dismantled the remaining systems at the front door, and entered.  
We heard a bunch of gunshots inside.  
"Is Agent R killing people?" Jawa asked.  
Catherine listened for a few seconds and then said, "No. He's just playing a video game." She led the way into the living room.  
There were a few weapons, but they appeared to be for self defense. Agent R was there, on a laptop, playing the game I heard, PlanetSide 2. However, he was using a controller.  
"Looks like he's off guard," Alexander noted. "We need to move."  
Indeed it did, as Agent R appeared completely focused on his game, where his avatar was driving a tank, shooting down anything trying to enter a building complex.  
Erica took a grenade launcher lying around and aimed it at Agent R as an aircraft destroyed his tank.  
"We need to talk," she said.  
"You've made a mistake," Agent R said, like he was playing checkers.  
"What would that be?" Cyrus asked.  
"Taking an empty weapon." Agent R immediately dropped the controller, grabbed a pistol on his desk, and aimed it at Erica. "Loaded beats unloaded."  
4 other agents arrived. I only recognized 2: Nefarious Jones and Jessica Shang.  
"You got freed?" Zoe asked Nefarious, surprised.  
"He did," Agent R answered. "And joined me. He is useful at backup controls. And Jessica here got recruited right after Operation Golden Fist failed. She picked up on some skills from the guards Leo always had. Orion has been gone for a while, though."  
"I'm right here," Orion said.  
"Orion!?" Agent R asked, surprised.  
"It's him," Jawa said. "So now do you see that we mean no harm."  
"Do you know anything about where Leo is now?" I asked Jessica.  
"No," she admitted. "I'd say he's with 1 of his associates, but whenever I've seen them, they've been secretive. I know almost nothing about him or them."  
"We got a note pinpointing your address," Cyrus said. "We aren't sure what it means, but it is a lead." He held it out.  
I expected him to be confused, but he wasn't. Instead, he said, "ADFGX Cipher? Really?"  
"That's what it is?" I asked.  
"What is it?" Mike asked.  
"The Germans made it for their telegraphs," Agent R explained. "A, D, F, G, and X are similar in Morse Code. Nuclear is the key word." He entered the message into an app on his laptop.  
Plaintext immediately came up: ONCE SPRUNG ATTACK FOLLOWING COORDINATES THEN MEET AT VIRGO RESORT CROATIA  
"Do you think Joshua Hallal and his team sprung them?" Zoe asked.  
"Possible," Erica replied. "He does need a bigger organization. Everyone from SPYDER is being hunted down or captured. Murray Hill and Joshua's team are the only ones to have no trace."  
"Either way, we have to get out of here," Chip said.  
At which moment, a bunch of Chinese thugs attacked.


	3. Evasive Action

Disclaimer: The address for the house mentioned here belongs to someone else, not a character. And Virgo Resort also doesn't exist.

Agent R's House  
Denver  
Colorado  
May 14  
1835 hours

We all took cover as the Chinese thugs began shooting.  
"Are there ANY loaded weapons here?" Cyrus asked.  
"Yes," Agent R answered. "The grenade launcher is mostly a throw off. I see it worked on you."  
Erica decided to see if this was true by grabbing a semiautomatic next to her and shooting back. It worked.  
The thugs also took cover as Agent R said, "We have to get to Virgo. Get my computer and run for it."  
"Why?" Cyrus asked. "To play games."  
"That's Nefarious's move," Jessica answered. "That has all the data on it. And, even though the security is high and there's a fail-safe, it could still be bypassed."  
Agent R threw a grenade at the thugs and ran for his computer.  
It didn't explode. The guards kept shooting.  
"You're not that better than Alexander Hale," one of them said. "Stay here. Hands up."  
And then the grenade exploded.  
The guards all fled as Agent R threw another grenade. Once they had even more cover, they began shooting again.  
"Follow me," Agent R yelled, and ran. As we all followed him, he threw another grenade.  
We ended up in the garage, where there was a van, filled with equipment. We all got in, and Agent R floored the engine.  
"I call shotgun," Erica said. In the Hale family, this meant you had to use an actual shotgun as well as getting the seat. I wondered if that was the same for Agent R's team.  
Nefarious was doing surveillance, viewing all the van's cameras. On the screens, it showed one of Leo Shang's car-tanks turned onto the road, chasing us. It had 2 Chinese guards, each with machine guns.  
Erica grabbed a shotgun and began taking them out, firing through the passenger window.  
"Zoe, you know computers," Catherine said calmly. "See if you can hack into Virgo's website."  
Jessica opened the sunroof and began shooting back as well.  
As they did, Agent R sped up. We were now going at dangerous speed as he drove onto I-70, where there were even more cars. Yet he drove at the same speed.  
"We've lost them," Nefarious reported.  
As he said that, another car-tank got onto the freeway the wrong way, so it was coming towards us.  
"I can't stop this!" Agent R yelled. "Crash positions!"  
We rammed into their car at high speed. Erica, Catherine, and Cyrus immediately took the weapons in the van and ran out to face the guards.  
"Put your hands up," one of them said. "And don't try anything funny."  
Hoping she could reason with the guards, Jessica went outside as well. She told them, "These guys are my friends."  
However, they aimed guns at her.  
"Your boss won't be happy when he hears you killed his daughter," she said.  
The guards laughed. "Actually," one of them said, "Agent Hallal convinced him otherwise. You're a loose end."  
I felt the wind had been knocked out of me. Joshua Hallal was working with Leo Shang.  
As Jessica tried to reason with the guards, Cyrus took advantage of the distraction and attacked.  
The car-tank from earlier appeared behind us. We were surrounded.  
"I don't think they left the note on purpose," I said. "Joshua probably wanted us to see it, so we would go. And then we would be killed too. It has Virgo to seem legit, and if everything goes to plan, we can't do anything because we'll be dead."  
"They're always one step ahead," Cyrus said. "If not twenty. This is just like Sandy Hook.  
9 months ago, SPYDER planned something involving the missiles at Sandy Hook Beach. After I was caught, we went there, as it was our only lead. However, SPYDER detonated the missiles then so we would take the fall for it or die.  
"How do we get out of this?" Nefarious asked.  
"Override all gunners," Agent R replied. "They'll be too focused on them."  
Nefarious immediately took a controller and began shooting at the guards.  
As the guards tried to take out the cannons, Cyrus disarmed them and got back in the van.  
The car-tank swerved out of the way with the guards in it as Agent R took off.  
We crossed over I-25 and, since it was rush hour, I-70 became much more crowded. However, Agent R still went fast, dashing in between the cars and lanes. By the time we reached I-270, we had caused 3 minor accidents. Shang's guards, trying to catch us, tried to run over any cars that got in their way. However, they were having more trouble.  
Agent R immediately got into 1 of the lanes and slowed down.  
"What's happening?" Alexander asked. "Why aren't we going fast?"  
Cyrus, who realized what Agent R was doing, shot Alexander a disdainful look. "Given that we lost them, they'll try to speed on this highway to find us," he said. "If we go slow like the others, the car-tanks will just pass."  
10 seconds later, the 2 car-tanks sped past us, ramming into a Camaro 1 lane over. However, they didn't give the van a second thought.  
Even though we went unnoticed, Agent R immediately got off of I-70 and onto a normal road. "Shang's guys will realize that they missed us by the time they hit East Aurora, which is close by. And then they'll double back." He drove into an alleyway and got out. "Take all weapons and get to the bridge for I-70."  
2 minutes later, the guards came back, speeding down West I-70. Erica fired a grenade at the first car-tank, hitting its engine. The second one rammed into it.  
We all climbed up to the bridge and disarmed all the guards.  
"Looks like this is over," Catherine said. "You are under our control. So it would be helpful for you if you told us what is so special about Virgo Resort."  
"We know nothing," one of them said.  
Cyrus wrenched that guard's arm behind his back and said, "I don't think so. And I think that if you don't tell us what you know and get us to Virgo, things will get worse for you all."


	4. Arrival

Virgo Resort  
Croatia  
May 15  
0725 hours/span/p

The guards were able to liberate a jet, and they flew that to Stapleton to kill us. They knew the directions of how to get to Virgo, and we made them take us there. We also stripped them of their weapons and communications.  
"Murray Hill suggested the idea when he was working for Leo," one of them said. "They could hide in plain sight and make money at the same time in case the plans fail. Most of it is completed."  
Agent R, not being able to bring his van, only took some equipment with him, hidden in his luggage. Since we all didn't have much either way, cargo wasn't a problem.  
By 7 AM, we arrived at Croatia. Agent R drove the rental van to the resort, having the Hales keep an eye on the guards. They weren't any trouble.  
However, they tried to head for Room Building 2 as soon as we arrived.  
"Where do you think you're going?" Cyrus asked.  
"Shang must be hiding at that room building," Catherine noted. "They must be planning to inform him that they failed."  
Orion hacked into the website and got us rooms in Building 1. Erica went to pick up the cards.  
We ended up getting 11 rooms, one for each of us. They were either next to or across from each other. It was standard inside.  
Once we settled into our rooms, Cyrus and Catherine decided to interrogate the guards. Nefarious took out a game console from his luggage and began playing.  
I was on the balcony, doing surveillance on Building 2, which was across the sidewalk from the one we were in.  
It was nothing out of the ordinary. It looked like actual rooms. I noticed some spy equipment in the rooms, but it mostly looked unused. I also spotted a bunch of gymnastics equipment on 1 of the balconys and in the room for it. Ashely Sparks was obviously staying there.  
The rest of the resort was normal as well. It had a water park, loads of pools, a few restaurants, and a bunch of activities. I saw an actual racecourse with real cats, as well as go-karting, a bunch of motorboats of various sizes on the beach, and a helipad with a sign that said "SKYDIVING."  
A helicopter parked on the helipad and 3 skydivers got out. Then the crew, 2 Chinese people, got out and, once the skydivers were out of earshot, started speaking.  
"Keep quiet so I can hear this," Erica said behind me. She had a long-range listening device in her ear.  
The guys went into Building 2, like they were guests and not Virgo employees. Nobody noticed them.  
"What did they say?" I asked Erica.  
"They were talking about a target," she replied. "Said that the attack should hit the western side."  
"So the skydiving was a cover for reconnaissance?"  
"I think so. We need to hack its GPS to find the target. Shang isn't as smart as SPYDER."  
"But Joshua is working for him. He might be one step ahead."  
"Likely. Only one way to check."  
"Anyways, what did the guards tell you?"  
"Shang had the resort staff get him the entire building. He and the leaders of his group, like the owner of the Chinese molybdenum mine, are in the penthouse. All the resort staff haven't heard anything about any evil organization and think that the place is being rented. That's all they know." She went to the room she had.  
"They know nothing else?" I asked.  
"Well the messages they got were the only clue. Shang is very secretive. So is Joshua. The helicopter is our only lead. We might have to infiltrate the building to see what their plans are."  
"We failed the last time we did."  
"Cause you decided to get involved in something you shouldn't have gotten involved in. If you didn't, we would have been fine."  
I heard some shouting in Chinese from one of our rooms, where the guards were.  
We ran in, and found Cyrus and Catherine fighting the guards, who had reclaimed their weapons.  
"Things are not good," Cyrus said. "The guards alerted Shang that we were here. We need to leave." He alerted everyone on his phone, and we ran out into the hallway.  
Since we were on the 3rd floor, the guards jumped onto the sidewalk and ran towards Building 2. We, however ran. We got into the elevators, and closed the door before anyone could spot us.  
"Should we hack again to get different rooms?" Orion asked.  
"No," Agent R replied. "Joshua will certainly be suspicious of any data input. We need money."  
The elevator doors opened and we ran out...  
Into a hallway filled with Shang's thugs.


End file.
